Adding Skins to DCS

[DD_Fenrir]

So you found a nice third party skin for your favourite DCS ride and you've downloaded it.

Q1. Where should it go?

You have two options:

1. The Saved Games folder

A dedicated Liveries folder within Saved Games DCS folder is the place recommended by ED for Third Party Skins = C:\Users\"yourusername"\Saved Games\DCS*\Liveries\"modulename" (* or DCS.openbeta)

It keeps the core game folder structure and the files within, sterile. Should you need ever to run a repair on your DCS install, it will flag ANY third party skin content as potentially worthy of removal and if you were careless or inattentive you could potentially lose all of your downloaded skins.

It is also the simplest place (kind of...) as it keep all your skins in one place whereas some of the core DCS install Liveries folders are in non-common and quite disingenuous places.

However, there are issues...

The Saved Games Folder is natively on the C:\ or Operating System drive and if, like me, that is starting to nibble at the limits of it's capacity, having a lot of skins in the Saved Games\DCS\Liveries area will bloat it considerably.

Also there is no native folder structure within this Liveries folder for every module: you need to create a folder and name it correctly for it to work. Here is a list of some of the most common modules whose names I have ID'd:

Quote

• A-10A
• A-10C
• A-10CII
• A-20G
• AJS37
• AV8BNA
• B-17G
• Bf-109K-4
• F-5E-3
• F-14A-135-GR
• F-14B
• F-15C
• F-16C_50
• FA-18C_hornet
• f-86f sabre
• FW-190A8
• FW-190D9
• I-16
• P-47D-30
• P-51D
• M-2000C
• MiG-15bis
• MiG-21BIS
• mig-29a
• mig-29g
• mig-29s
• SpitfireLFMkIX
• SpitfireLFMkIXCW
• su-25t
• su-27
• su-33
• Yak-52

 

2. The Core DCS File Structure

As outlined above there is an issue with repairing DCS by putting your 3rd Party skins here, but if you're aware and careful it should be less of an issue.

The main problem will be finding the specific location for them as they are disjointed.

As a general rule, Flaming Cliffs 3 aircraft, which include the following,

• F-15C
• mig-29a
• mig-29g
• mig-29s
• su-25
• su-25t
• su-27
• su-33

Should go in their respective folder here:  

"Install Drive":\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Bazar\Liveries\"modulename"

 

WW2 era (except the I-16 confusingly...), including AI aircraft for the Asset Pack should go here:

"Install Drive":\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\CoreMods\WWII Units\"modulename"\Liveries\"modulename"

 

Others (including the I-16) go here:

"Install Drive":\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\CoreMods\aircraft\"modulename"\Liveries\"modulename"

 

Q2. How do I extract the downloaded contents within the relevant folder correctly?

The first and most important thing to be aware of is, unlike other sims, there is NOT ONE SINGLE TEXTURE FILE FOR A COMPLETE SKIN; there is at least 1 texture files (sometimes many more) plus a description.lua file. This last file IS REQUIRED. These should be contained in folder. It is this folder that should be placed in the ...\Liveries\"modulename"

E.G.:

...\Liveries\SpitfireLFMkIX\RAF, No. 16 Squadron 

Where the "RAF, No. 16 Squadron" contains the texture file and a description.lua.

 

If you have any problem seeing an installed skin, the first thing to check is that it is not double foldered. i.e. 

...\Liveries\SpitfireLFMkIX\RAF, No. 16 Squadron\RAF, No. 16 Squadron

This is a common cause for not being able to access skins that you have apparently installed in game.

 

Q3. I still cannot access my new 3rd Party skin, yet I have double checked the install path is correct. Why dear god, why?!

The description.lua contains - among other things - a list of the countries 'allowed' to access that skin in game - if you or the mission maker have created the mission with your particular aircraft assigned to a country that does not have the permission to access the skin as defined by the description.lua you will not be able to select it within either the Mission Editor, or within the Loadout Editor in a live mission.

[rox]

Quote

Here is a list of some of the most common modules whose names I have ID'd

One more notable irregular one is the Mi-8, whose folder name is Mi-8mt and NOT Mi-8MTV (the actual version of the aircraft in the module).

 

Quote

The description.lua contains - among other things - a list of the countries 'allowed' to access that skin in game - if you or the mission maker have created the mission with your particular aircraft assigned to a country that does not have the permission to access the skin as defined by the description.lua you will not be able to select it within either the Mission Editor, or within the Loadout Editor in a live mission.

There are also aircraft that are simply excluded from the aircraft list for a certain country in DCS World (often with little logic), so the Syrian skins I downloaded for the Mi-8 are actually found under the Russian Mi-8, as the helicopter is entirely absent as a choice when Syria is selected as a country.

[DD_Fenrir]

32 minutes ago, rox said:

.....so the Syrian skins I downloaded for the Mi-8 are actually found under the Russian Mi-8, as the helicopter is entirely absent as a choice when Syria is selected as a country.

Syria was only recently added as a country option; it could be that the skin was created before the Syria as a country option was made available. You can edit the Description.lua in notepad though Rox; you could add the Syria code to  the allowed country portion, but you'll have to find out exactly what that code is...

[rox]

What I mean is that you can't select a Mi-8 under the country Syria in DCS World in the first place, it's just not listed. So if you want to have a "Syrian" Mi-8, you need to actually put it into the editor as a Russian Mi-8 (or any other country of the same coalition) and load the skin from the same country under which the Mi-8 is placed (in the case of the skin I downloaded, Russia was allocated as the skin country in the lua). Basically a Russian heli in the editor with a Syrian skin.

[DD_Fenrir]

2 minutes ago, rox said:

What I mean is that you can't select a Mi-8 under the country Syria in DCS World in the first place, it's just not listed. So if you want to have a "Syrian" Mi-8, you need to actually put it into the editor as a Russian Mi-8 (or any other country of the same coalition) and load the skin from the same country under which the Mi-8 is placed (in the case of the skin I downloaded, Russia was allocated as the skin country in the lua). Basically a Russian heli in the editor with a Syrian skin.

That then would be a worthy candidate for a Bug Report on the ED forums!

[rox]

It's been mentioned a lot already, this is true for some other a/c and countries as well. for example:

https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/244197-syrian-mi-8s-and-mig-25s

[DD_Fenrir]

Just found out that it is possible to move your "Saved Games" folder to another disk and Windows will retain the connection to DCS core files, so if like me you were running out of disk space on you OS drive, but have plenty of space elsewhere, then rejoice!

 

[FoolTrottel]

Just yesterday I've applied a different trick to save some disk space: Use a link to point the 'liveries' folder from my Stable version, to the one of the Beta version. (within the Saved Games folder structure)

First delete the liveries folder from the Stable one (maybe first move its content over to the Beta one if you like/need/want to), and next, this command does it all:

mklink /j "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\DCS\liveries" "C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\liveries"

(If you copy paste this command into a .cmd file, you only need to change the path names of DCS and DSC.openbeta to the names you use. If you copy paste it in to a dos box/command prompt, you need to replace the %USERNAME% bit with your actual username.)

 The stable versions liveries folder now shows up like this:

When opened, you end up in the Beta versions' liveries folder. So now there's only one folder to put skins into :

This mklink command has been discussed on these forums before, regarding the use of 1946's paintschemes folders across the diffferent versions... but back in the days I did not want to use it, too confusing for me - here I think it's less complex... lol

[DD_Fenrir]

Thanks FT

2 Q's:

1. Do you need a Livery folder to still exist (albeit empty) in the DCS

2. Where does the .cmd file need to go?

[FoolTrottel]

1. It should not be there at all. If it is there, the mklink command will not work.

2. Not really relevant, you only need to run it once  Edit: ah, I now realize I forgot to mention this little detail, lol. Sorry!

[DD_Fenrir]

Thanks FT you're a bloomin gem!